From its’ title, one might get the impression that Eric Larson’s best selling book, The Devil in the White City, is about religion. Yet other than a reference to the Sabbatarian Movement, which opposed all commerce on Sunday, a five thousand voice choir, which sang Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus at a dedication ceremony, and a few scattered references to influential clergy, religion is hardly mentioned. The devil in the book is not Satan, but a mass murderer, and the White City is not heaven, but the spectacular, all-white buildings that housed the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Reading Larson’s book is like going through a museum packed with American cultural icons. Devices, products and concepts first introduced at the fair have become so much a part of our lives, that it is difficult to imagine they were once considered new. In a chapter entitled, “Night Is the Magician”, Larson provides a brief summary of the wonders encountered by those lucky enough to attend what became known as “the fair of all fairs.”

They heard live music played by an orchestra in New York and transmitted to the fair by long-distance telephone. They saw the first moving pictures on Edison’s Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered from Mikola Tesla’s body. They saw even more ungodly things—the first zipper; the first-ever all electric kitchen, which included an automatic dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s. They sampled a new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely tosucceed—“shredded doormat,” some called it—but a new beer did well, winning the exposition’s top beer award. Forever afterward, its brewer called it Pabst Blue Ribbon. Visitors also encountered the latest and arguably most important invention of the century, the vertical file, created by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system (pp. 247-248). At the dedication ceremony, writes Larson, Francis J. Bellamy, an editor of Youth’s Companion, thought it would be a fine thing if the schoolchildren of America, in unison, offered something to their nation. “He composed a pledge that the Bureau of Education mailed to virtually every school. As originally worded, it began, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands . . .”(p. 181)

Larson’s book is both a time capsule of American history and a tribute to those creative individuals, largely unknown to us today, whose vision, talent and influence – focused on a venue that lasted fewer than 200 days -- changed the world’s perception of America and America’s perception of what was possible.